14th Symphony (Shostakovich)
The 14th Symphony for soprano, bass and chamber orchestra by Dmitri Shostakovich (op. 135) was completed in the spring of 1969 and premiered on September 29 of the same year in Leningrad under the direction of Rudolf Barschai . The work is designed for a small string orchestra with percussion instruments and vocal soloists in the bass and soprano ranges . It contains eleven songs based on poems by four authors. Much of the text deals with the subject of death . The symphony is dedicated to Benjamin Britten .
Origin and first performances
Shostakovich composed his 14th symphony during a hospital stay in Moscow in January and February 1969. Sikorski-Verlag names January 21st to March 2nd as the period. Derek Hulme gives the following dates: Completion of a piano version with vocal parts on February 16 in the hospital, the final version of the work on March 2 in the composer's Moscow apartment.
Shostakovich was directly influenced by Modest Mussorgski's Songs and Dances of Death . Shostakovich orchestrated this admired work in 1962 and dedicated it to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya . Shostakovich found its brevity to be a shortcoming, as it only comprises four songs. Another influential work is the War Requiem by his friend Benjamin Britten, to whom the 14th symphony is also dedicated. Shostakovich also admired this work, but found its outcome too positive. In an introduction to the premiere, he said:
“Sometimes I try to counter the great classics that deal with the subject of 'death' in their works. Think of the death of Boris Godunov: when Boris Godunov dies, it becomes light as it were. Think of Verdi's Otello : when the whole tragedy ends and Desdemona and Othello die, we also experience a wonderful transfiguration. […] I find this even among our contemporaries, take for example the extraordinary English composer Benjamin Britten: In this respect I also have something to complain about with his War Requiem. I think that all this comes from various religious teachings [...] that absolute peace awaits us in the hereafter. So it seems to me that I am at least partly following in the footsteps of the eminent Russian composer Musorgsky. His cycle of Songs and Dances of Death - maybe not all of them, but definitely 'Der Feldmarschall' - is a great protest against death […]. Death awaits each of us. I can't see anything good in our life ending like this, and that's what I want to convey in this work. "
From the beginning, Shostakovich had Rudolf Barschai with his Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya in mind. The composer, suffering from illness, wanted to see his work performed as soon as possible because he feared that he would no longer be able to experience his work. A performance in front of an invited audience was therefore scheduled for June 21, 1969, just before the summer break. Vishnevskaya, however, was unable to participate due to a busy schedule.
The following early performances are of particular importance (sources: Fay, Hulme):
- Special concert in front of a selected audience. June 21, 1969, Moscow, Small Hall of the Conservatory. The soloists were Margarita Miroshnikova (soprano) and Evgeny Vladimirov (bass).
- Premiere. September 29, 1969, Leningrad, Glinka Hall, with the soloists Galina Vishnevskaya and J. Vladimirov. (According to G. Vishnevskaya, the performance was preceded by 60 rehearsals.)
- Moscow premiere. October 6, 1969, Moscow, with G. Vishnevskaya and Mark Reschetin as soloists.
These three were performed by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Rudolf Barschai. The first two performances were introduced with personal words by Dmitri Shostakovich.
- Foreign premiere. June 14, 1970, Aldeburgh Festival , with the English Chamber Orchestra under the direction of the dedicatee Benjamin Britten and the soloists Vishnevskaya and Reschetin.
The performance on June 21 was accompanied by a dramatic event. Shostakovich asked the audience to be quiet because the concert was being recorded. During the 5th movement on watch , a party official named Pavel Apostostolov, seated in the front of the audience, left the hall noisily because he suffered a heart attack or stroke which resulted in his death a month later.
reception
According to Krzysztof Meyer , the 14th Symphony did not provoke any official (party) protests (as was the case with the 13th Symphony ). But it contributed to the break in the hitherto "correct" relationship between Shostakovich and Alexander Solzhenitsyn . The reason were ideological differences. The deeply religious Solzhenitsyn accused the atheist Shostakovich of a false reference to death, which is portrayed in Symphony No. 14 as a life-destroying, all existence-destroying power.
occupation
In addition to the vocal soloists (soprano and bass), there is a string orchestra consisting of ten violins , four violas , three cellos and two 5-string double basses . The following rhythm instruments are used: castanets , wooden blocks , whips , tom-tom , celesta , xylophone , vibraphone and bell .
Subdivision
The work is divided into eleven sections, each of which contains a poem.
- Adagio. De profundis ( Federico García Lorca )
- Allegretto. Malagueña (Federico García Lorca)
- Allegro molto. Loreley ( Guillaume Apollinaire after Clemens Brentano )
- Adagio. The suicide (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Allegretto. On Watch (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Adagio. Look, madame! (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Adagio. In the dungeon of the Santé (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Allegro. Answer of the Zaporog Cossacks to the Sultan of Constantinople (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Andante. To Delwig ( Wilhelm Küchelbecker )
- Largo. The death of the poet ( Rainer Maria Rilke )
- Moderato. Final piece (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Recurring here is the initial motif of the Gregorian Dies Irae , which plays an important role in Russian culture. Two movements are dodecaphone .
In the original version, the poems are all sung translated into Russian. (Only Küchelbecker's poem is original in Russian.) The composer also authorized a German version (in which he adapted the music lines in the 10th movement The Death of the Poet to the German language) and (at Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's request ) a version in which all poems are sung in the original language of the poet.
literature
- David Fanning, Notes to Deutsche Grammophon 437785, Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14 , Brigitte Fassbaender , mezzo-soprano ; Ljuba Kazarnovskaya , soprano ; Sergei Leiferkus , bass ; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi .
- Laurel E. Fay: Shostakovich: A Life. Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Derek C. Hulme: Dmitri Shostakovich Catalog. 4th edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2010.
- Francis Maes: A History of Russian Music: From 'Kamarinskaya' to 'Babi Yar'. translated by Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans. University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 2002, ISBN 0-520-21815-9 .
- Krzysztof Meyer: Shostakovich. His life, his work, his time. Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1995, ISBN 3-7857-0772-X .
- Brian Morton: Shostakovich: His Life and Music. House Publishing, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-904950-50-9 .
- Dmitri Schostakowitsch: Symphony No. 14 op.135 . Pocket score SIK 2174. Music publisher Hans Sikorski, Hamburg 1970.
- Dmitri Shostakovich, Isaak Glikman: Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman . Cornell Univ. Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8014-3979-5 .
- Solomon Volkov (Ed.): Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich. translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Harper & Row, New York 1979, ISBN 0-06-014476-9 .
- Andreas Wernli: Frequencies # 01. Dmitri Shostakovich. Symphony No. 14 op.135. Rüffer & Rub, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-907625-19-6 .
- Elizabeth Wilson: Shostakovich: A Life Remembered . Princeton University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-691-04465-1 .